


to rise (to fall)

by keyshrine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, only a little bit of henry sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyshrine/pseuds/keyshrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had always considered the very idea of allowing someone to ride her ridiculous. Shameful. Humans did not belong on the backs of dragons, and those who tried would be quick to die.</p><p>Or: three times Maleficent allows someone to ride her. (Multiple someones, in fact.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	to rise (to fall)

**Author's Note:**

> i found this in the depths of my documents folder and i fixed it up a bit and wrote the third part while my internet was out for a whole day so. i thought, why not post it?
> 
> no one will ever be able to tell me that the queens of darkness didn't have at least a lil bit of sex during their adventures

**_one._ **

Regina's breath is warm and quick against the expanse of her neck; the little thing's fingertips are digging tight into her scales. It would hurt, surely, were dragon scales not hard, the texture of any metal or any stone. Maleficent has never let anyone ride her before. Regina does not know this, does not know that she has been given the opportunity that has never been given to anyone else before. She had climbed, trembling, onto Maleficent's back in the courtyard of her fortress, her hands moving uncertainly over the expanse of Maleficent's better form. It had always been considered _better_ by the one who owned it: why talk and be weak and fleshy and small when you could _fly,_ when you could let fire form in your lungs and breathe it out in spirals of flame?

She had always considered the very idea of allowing someone to ride her ridiculous. Shameful. Humans did not belong on the backs of dragons, and those who tried would be quick to die. But Regina is different. This is an honor that she owes to Regina, to the girl who had restored her fire. She had come into her life and pieced some broken, pitiful shell back together without mocking her, without leaving her to rot, without grimacing whenever she looked at Maleficent and how pathetic she was.

The word _friend_ feels strange in her mind and on her tongue when she speaks it as a human. _You are my friend, Regina._ She does not say it out loud, of course. But she thinks it so that Regina cannot hear it. The girl would not laugh at her, at her overbearingly maudlin words. She knows this, but still cannot say it, will not say it. Surely Regina knows: they are bonded now, in life and in death. Regina has helped her, has helped the dragon and the human, and in that has forged a bond that will last beyond anything—though only if _she_ desires it. Maleficent will not return to her, like a dog looking for treats.

Regina will be the one returning.

That is not an unpleasant idea.

Underneath her, a stretch of forest, green, and above, the sky, blue and white with clouds, and she dives lower, earning a little screech from the human on her back. She laughs; it emerges as a snort in this form, but Regina understands it well enough. “Stop doing that!” the queen hisses, but she is not intimidating. (Later, she is darker; the things she wears are darker, her eyes are darker, and Maleficent will think to miss the Regina that she had first met, in reds and browns, nervous and soft but angry.) In the distance, Maleficent sees the castle. Regina's hands soften around her neck, reach up to touch her horns briefly. “Can you—“ She hears the girl swallow. “Can you go around, once or twice?”

Maleficent knows what she is asking, and something inside of her warms pleasantly to know that she is considered more pleasant company than those insect-sized royals in that insect-sized castle, that Regina would beg her to slow, to circle it, to take her time before landing. Maleficent dips, significantly slower than the last time, and obeys, wings stretched out. The wind is cold against her scales. It is almost dark, but she flies around the castle, high enough so that if one were to look up from below her they would see nothing but a dark speck in the sky. A very large dark speck, but a speck nevertheless.

“Thank you,” says Regina, and strokes her, fingertips sliding lightly over her scales. Maleficent makes a noise in the back of her throat and Regina laughs. “Did you _purr?_ ” For her insolence, Maleficent dives fast towards the ground and pulls up just at the right time. Regina shrieks, though to Maleficent it sounds slightly exhilarated. “Don't _do_ that!”

When Maleficent lands, it's close enough for Regina to walk back to the castle easily, but not close enough for anyone to see her land, though she supposes it wouldn't truly matter if anyone did. She lets Regina climb from her back and then shifts, feels her bones changing and warping and shrinking as she does. It had hurt, once. It had hurt for a very long time, that transformation from human to beast, but it no longer does, so used to it is she, and Regina looks at her with bright eyes when she stretches to accommodate her new form, rolling her wrists and shoulders.

Maleficent steps forward. “You'll visit me again soon,” she says, and it is not a question, but Regina nods all the same, smiling and shifting on her feet, her face flushed. She's pretty. A pretty little queen, and she is all Maleficent's. She is Maleficent's friend and no one else's, and that thought causes satisfaction to bubble up inside of the sorceress like the heat of dragonfire. Maleficent kisses her, then, under the stretch of two trees. Not on the mouth; on the cheek, but when she draws away Regina looks as though she's kissed her on the mouth, so red is her face.

Maleficent laughs and it turns into a loud roar as she changes again, spreading her wings.

She feels Regina watching her as she rises into the sky, but Maleficent does not look back.

**_two._ **

Cruella is surprisingly calm when she climbs onto Maleficent, wriggling a little. “You know, darling, I could get you a saddle—“ Maleficent shakes herself suddenly and Cruella gasps when she nearly topples off of her. “Oh. _Fine,_ then. You needn't be rude about it.” She closes a hand around one of Maleficent's horns in retaliation. Maleficent lets out a single warning growl, and at least the woman atop her is intelligent enough to loosen her grip before Maleficent turns her head to bite her. Cruella slides her hands over her sinuous neck. “Lovely,” she says, sounding almost fascinated.

Ursula is staring up at them both incredulously, her tentacles writhing around her like she's prepared to fend them off if they force her to climb up onto Maleficent's back. “No,” she says flatly, stepping back. “I am not _riding_ you. I'm not built for that kind of thing, angelfish. I don't— _fly,_ especially not on the backs of dragons.” 

Maleficent can hear a tremor beneath her strong voice. It's fear. The sea witch is scared. It's reasonable, perhaps. Not everyone is suited to riding on the back of a dragon in the middle of the night, and not everyone is so eager like Cruella, who is digging her heels into Maleficent's sides like she is a horse to be commanded, seems to be.

Maleficent lowers her head, presses it into dirt and rock beneath her and waits, watching Ursula. The woman stares at them both for a very long time, so long that Cruella gets impatient and sighs, as though a burdensome weight has been thrown upon her. “Just fly, darling. She can find her way back to your fortress from the sea.” 

Ursula's eyes narrow into slits when she hears that. Maleficent huffs out a breath and begins to raise herself, and Ursula hisses as she moves, latching her fingers tightly around Maleficent's shoulder like it's a handhold as she lifts herself up onto her back.

Maleficent feels the strange slickness of Ursula's tentacles; they curl around her too, until Ursula is holding on with all of her limbs. And shaking. _Poor thing,_ Maleficent thinks, with very little sincerity. It's almost amusing, but she makes not a noise to prove that amusement as she rises, wings stretching out on either side of her. Cruella's hands are still moving, stroking her scales like Maleficent sees her stroke her fur coat so often.

“I don't recall agreeing to this when I allied with both of you,” Ursula gasps as Maleficent takes them into the sky.

“Don't worry, darling,” Cruella soothes, though she doesn't sound overly concerned for Ursula's well-being, or the possibility that she will die from fear before Maleficent's fortress even comes into view among the distant mountains. “She won't drop us.”

“That's what you say now, but when she does, you'll be screaming and thinking of how wrong you were and how much you regret everything that you've ever done in your life,” Ursula replies snappishly, “like I am doing right now.”

Because she is cruel and enjoys proving it, Maleficent pulls in her wings and _drops._

There are two shrieks from above her – one, genuinely terrified and louder than she'd ever thought Ursula capable of, and the second clear and laughing, exhilarated, gasping as Maleficent straightens out again. “Oh, that was _fun,_ darling,” Cruella says, ever a thrillseeker, “Do it again,” she commands after a moment.

“Don't you _dare,_ ” hisses Ursula, digging human fingers into her scales with surprising strength, though even then it is not enough to penetrate the iron hardness of them. Nothing is ever enough, and Ursula's clawing is more like a tickling sensation at the back of her neck, but still _there_ enough for her to know that it _is_ Ursula and Ursula _is_ frightened.

There is a certain limit to her cruelty, though, and she does not like being commanded, certainly not by Cruella, so she does not do it again. (There is also this: she likes Ursula a great deal more than she's ever liked Cruella.)

As they soar over the forests and oceans, growing closer and closer to the mountains, Cruella's elation fades and so does Ursula's fear, at least somewhat; as a dragon all of Maleficent's senses are heightened considerably and she can almost _smell_ the fear, an acrid honey-thick presence clinging to Ursula, but it fades as Maleficent obeys Ursula and does not swoop downwards again (much to Cruella's dismay, who decides to take it upon herself to dig her heels into Maleficent to try and get her to do it again, like she's some sort of trained horse.)

“That was awful,” Ursula complains as she clambers messily off of Maleficent, tripping over herself as her tentacles bear down on the ground. It is a complaint that drips with relief, but a complaint nevertheless.

“It was _fantastic,_ ” Cruella drawls with a satisfied sigh as she climbs from Maleficent's back far more gracefully, brushing herself off.

Maleficent shifts back, that familiar natural shudder going through her as she does so. Once, it was painful to go back and forth—in the beginning, it was agonizing, and she hadn't wanted to do it at all. But she had, too determined to do any less, and now it was as natural as breathing with only a slight crawling discomfort beneath her skin at the change of skins, from dragon to human and human to dragon. She's too hot when becoming a dragon and too cold when returning to human shape; but it's a momentary discomfort, and then it's gone altogether.

“Savor it while you can,” she responds coolly, already moving up the winding snowy path to her fortress, “You will not be riding me again.”

“Thank the seas for that,” Ursula mutters under her breath.

And Cruella, of course, takes the opportunity where she sees it. “Are you absolutely certain about that, darling?” the woman purrs, cocking a hip, “I can make it _very_ enjoyable for the both of us.”

Maleficent's noise of disgust is all the response that she offers.

Ursula laughs, though, and her laughter is loud and echoes through the trees.

(It's a nice sound, but Maleficent only reflects on that afterwards.)

**_three._ **

There is little space in Storybrooke for a dragon.

The forest is too over-crowded, too many trees and too little wide enough clearings for her to fit the whole of her dragon shape in; and even if she _could_ find space in the actual town, she'd certain that there would be a mob with all the necessities (pitchforks, torches, and that old woman who runs the diner at the head of it all) attempting to chase her down in very little time. 

The problem is not the people, however, only the space. There is space in the sky; wide, stretching space, an expanse of blue to travel, to look down upon buildings that shrink more and more as she rises, upon people who will never know the true freedom of flying.

Still, she finds a suitable spot in the forest to transform, for the sake of Regina and her child, who watches wide-eyed and breathes afterwards, “That's _so cool,_ ” and she isn't quite sure how to react to that at all so she merely twitches her wings impatiently and lowers herself, feeling more and more jittery the longer that she is on the ground and not in the air.

She has promised this, with vague reluctance, to them. To one of them, at least, and all the child had needed to do was look at Regina and she surrendered beneath the begging weight of it, a sigh and a _very well, but you are not going alone._

Maleficent keeps her promises. (She tries her very best to keep all of them. She fails, from time to time, but she tries all the same, especially for Regina though she tries not to linger on that, tries not to linger on the skipping beat of the weak, human organ in her chest whenever Regina so much as smiles at her, like she's turned into some lovestruck human whose stars in their eyes blur her vision to the fact that there is no such thing as true love, and she will never believe in it. But there is _love._ Simple love. It is just as real as everyone seems to think true love is. No—it is _more_ real.)

To let a human child ride on her back like she's some sort of steed made specifically to make children happy is enough to make her ill, but Henry Mills is different. Henry Mills is Henry _Mills,_ he is Regina's son, he is the thing that Regina loves most in all of this world and any other, and...

And Maleficent promises.

And Henry climbs—very gently, like he'll accidentally hurt her—atop her, hands soft on her back and neck as Regina helps him up onto her, and then follows him. Regina is a familiar weight, oddly soothing, her hands at familiar places around Maleficent's neck, stroking gently—idly.

If it were only Regina on her back, she would dive playfully downwards in such a rush of speed that any human atop her would swear they would collide with the ground, only to pull upwards at the last moment and steal the breath from them. But it is not just Regina here; it is her son, and so Maleficent rides slowly, gently, more and more tension draining out of her moment by moment until there is none left at all. Whenever she flies higher or goes lower, it is with soft dips and curves, nothing to jolt a human's stomach to a state of nausea.

She is doing this for Regina's child. She is doing this for Regina.

(It is an injustice to let a human ride her, any human, even the one that she loves and has loved and will love, and her child with her; it is wrong, and that knowledge sits like a black rock heavy in the pit of her stomach, but she allows it anyway, she breaks unspoken rules for Regina, time and time again.)

She has tormented villages; she has burned them down to the ground, has turned them all to ash and the humans with it. She has burned and burned and burned, killed and killed and killed, allowed horrific legends to grow fearful and worshipful all at once in the tiny, useless mouths of humans, her name spoken in a whisper at night like a taboo, like she would emerge from the shadows and strike down whoever spoke it.

And now she is here, fulfilling the wish of a child.

(If he were not Regina's child, she would not consider it for a _moment._ )

“Just like old times,” Regina murmurs softly against her neck when they are over Storybrooke, steadily rising higher into the air.

It startles her somewhat, and she cannot reply verbally, so she snorts quietly in response.

_Just like old times._


End file.
